White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

Happy National Cupcake Day! When I heard that there was, indeed, a holiday honoring my favorite confection, I knew I had to celebrate. I had been scheming about making some white chocolate raspberry cupcakes for some time now, and figured what better time to put it to the test.

Despite a bit of a fiasco with the frosting (see: I broke my buttercream), and a bit of an ‘overflow’ issue with the cupcakes, these turned out quite well. We made half of them with the raspberry filling and white chocolate frosting, and left the other half unfilled but flavored the frosting with the remaining raspberry, to see which one we liked better. The filled cupcakes are definitely the winners.

If you’re brave I’d encourage you to try the fancy white chocolate buttercream that I attempted to do (supposedly not nearly as sweet as regular buttercream, but 10x as hard to make), but for the faint of heart and the cooked-sugar-phobes, these cupcakes are still plenty delicious with the good ole’ fashioned sugary sweet American buttercream.

I love the fact that these cupcakes look like the iconic cupcake with a cherry on top. Whenever you see a cute representation of a cupcake, they always look just like this. Always. It cracks me up that I actually made a cupcake that fit that cliche. Rarely do you ever see an actual cupcake with a cherry on top – so in this case, a raspberry will just have to do!

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White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
4 ounces white chocolate, melted
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Filling:
8 ounces frozen raspberries
1 tablespoon water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup water

Frosting:
If you're brave, try this recipe (and let me know how it turns out!). If you want something less complicated, use American buttercream, instructions below.

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/3 cup cream cheese or tofutti cream cheese
3 to 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, seeded, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon soymilk
6 ounces white chocolate, melted
12 fresh raspberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ËšF.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add sugar and brown sugar and mix. Slowly mix together melted chocolate and oil. Whisk together soy milk, coconut milk, lemon zest, and vanilla. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix until relatively smooth. Fill cupcake liners with a scant 1/4 cup of batter (should be just under 2/3 of the way full - my cupcakes overflowed, so err on the under-filled side here). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden, and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

To make filling, combine frozen raspberries with water, sugar, and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until raspberries begin to break down. Add 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixture and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, and strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve, pressing as much through as possible. Return strained mixture to heat once again. Add another tablespoon of cornstarch mixture, and bring to a simmer. If mixture still seems thin, add more cornstarch as necessary. It will thicken more upon cooling. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.

Cut out small cones from tops of cupcakes (holes should be approximately 1/2" across and 1/2" deep), saving removed cake. Fill holes with raspberry filling, and replace cake on top.

To make frosting, beat butter or margarine and cream cheese until fluffy. Slowly add confectioner’s sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, until creamy. Melt white chocolate as before, and mix in vanilla seeds or extract. Add to frosting and mix well. Add extract and soy milk, and beat until fluffy (add more sugar and/or soymilk if you need it, until you get the right texture). Generously pipe or spread onto filled cupcakes. Top each cupcake with a single fresh raspberry.

I broke my buttercream.

Hi, my name is Lindsay, and I have a fear of cooked sugar.

This time, the results were disastrous.

Take 1: Cooking the sugar syrup, as per the instructions for this White Chocolate Mousseline Buttercream. Darn pan seizes up on me, goes rock hard before I can even get it out the pan. I’m sure I had a stray sugar crystal in there somewhere, but geez! Does it have to be so hard?

Take 2: Trying Alton Brown’s trick, and added a bit of corn syrup to the sugar mixture to keep it from crystallizing. However, our candy thermometer was too slow and the sugar syrup was too shallow in the pan to get an accurate read on it. I let it boil for a little while, but to stir? Not to stir? I stirred it. And probably took it off too early. But after my first attempt, I didn’t want to chance it doing that again.

Take 2 seemed to be going well. My egg whites whipped up beautifully with the sugar syrup, and most of butter went in without a hitch. But then, all of a sudden, well, you see what happened. It was a downhill slope from there, the more I mixed it to try to fix it the worse it got. I whipped that stuff for a good 5 minutes after it curdled, to no avail. Hopeless. Into the trash it went.

Take 3: Screw cooked sugar. These cupcakes need frosting, and frosting they will get. But there will be no cooking of anything involved. In goes the butter and tofutti cream cheese. In goes the powdered sugar. White chocolate. Vanilla. Voila. Buttercream.

So, somebody please tell me what went wrong? Was it the corn syrup? Did I take the syrup off the heat too soon? Did I not let the egg/sugar mixture cool completely? Am I just a dunce? While the American Buttercream is easy, these cupcakes I made last night would taste so much better without the sickeningly sweet frosting, I’m just not sure that perfect frosting is worth this amount of trouble.

Pizza with Eggs, Roasted Red Peppers, Olives and Arugula

I miss pizza. Poor Taylor (who can still eat pizza) misses pizza more than I do. So when I come across a pizza recipe that isn’t slathered in mozzarella, I jump on it. Like this recipe, found in the January issue of Bon Appetit. Only cheese on this baby is Parmesan, which is aged enough that it doesn’t harm my delicate stomach. Perfect.

Granted, it looks a bit out there. Eggs? On a pizza? Odd. But surprisingly good. And creative too – I mean, whoever though of strategically placing thick rings of red onion on the pizza to contain the eggs? Genius. Just be sure you have something underneath your pizza (like a rimmed baking sheet) to catch any egg that decides to escape.

The crust was a bit tough. Not sure if that was my fault or the recipe’s, but I have a pizza crust recipe that I think is much better. Next time we make this, and there WILL BE a next time, we’ll use that crust recipe instead.

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Pizza with Eggs, Roasted Red Peppers, Olives and Arugula

Makes 2-4 servings. Recipe from Bon Appetit.

Ingredients:

Dough:
2 tablespoons warm water (115°F)
1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cool water (65°F to 70°F)
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
Olive oil
Cornmeal (for sprinkling)

Topping:
Olive oil
3/4 cup drained roasted red peppers from jar, cut into 1/3-inch strips
1/3 cup Kalamata olives, pitted, quartered
1 cup Parmesan cheese shavings
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
4 large red onion rings (each 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter and 1/2 inch thick)
4 large eggs
2 cups (lightly packed) arugula

Directions:

For dough: Pour 2 tablespoons warm water into large bowl of stand mixer fitted with dough hook; sprinkle yeast over. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 15 minutes (mixture will not be foamy). Add both flours, 1/2 cup cool water, and 1 teaspoon coarse salt; mix on medium-low speed 4 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes, then mix on medium speed until dough is smooth, elastic, and slightly sticky, about 3 minutes.

Lightly oil medium bowl. Gather dough into ball and transfer to prepared bowl; turn to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature 30 minutes. Chill dough overnight. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.

Transfer bowl to warm draft-free area and let dough rise, covered, until very slightly puffy, at least 2 hours.

For topping: Place pizza stone or rimless baking sheet in oven; preheat to 500°F. Sprinkle pizza paddle or another baking sheet generously with cornmeal. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to 12-inch round; transfer to paddle. Brush dough with oil; scatter peppers, then olives over. Sprinkle with Parmesan and rosemary. Arrange onion rings atop pizza, spacing apart. Slide pizza onto stone or baking sheet in oven; bake until lightly browned but not crisp, about 7 minutes. Remove pizza from oven and gently crack 1 egg into each onion ring. Return pizza to oven and continue to bake until eggs are softly set and crust is golden, about 6 minutes. Sprinkle pizza with salt and pepper. Scatter arugula over.

Orecchiette with Lentils, Onions, and Spinach

Lentils are way under-appreciated. Especially for vegetarian cooking, they offer a delicious source of protein, texture, and rich earthy flavors. Granted, they might take a little while to cook, but they are always well worth it. We’ve done plenty of lentil soups and stews, salads and even sandwiches, but this is the first pasta I’ve seen that utilizes these nutritious legume. Apparently, lentils have the 3rd highest levels of protein in a plant, right behind soybeans and hemp.

As far as varieties of lentils, our supermarket only carries one, the precise variety of which I am unsure. They are little khaki colored brownish things, so I’m assuming they are the common brown lentil (I’m a genius, I know). We’ve also found the red variety at an International Foods store, though I don’t recommend substituting the red ones in this dish: the reds cook much quicker and you might end up with a pot of mush. Have some red lentils lying around? Try this easy and delicious red lentil soup. I have yet to find actual French Green Lentils (though I admit I haven’t looked all that hard), but the brown ones worked just fine in this recipe (just be cautious not to overcook them – they can get mushy, fast!)

This dish was surprisingly hearty, yet still fresh and delicious. Definitely something we’ll be making again.

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Orecchiette with Lentils, Onions, and Spinach

Makes 6 servings. Recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive oil
3 large onions (2 pounds total), thinly sliced (7 cups)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 Turkish or 1/2 California bay leaf
1 cup French green lentils
1 pound orecchiette, fusilli, or penne
2 (5-ounce) bags baby spinach
1 1/2 ounces finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons)

Directions:

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then stir in onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Reduce heat to moderately low and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until onions are very tender and golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Discard bay leaf.

While onions cook, cover lentils with water by 1 inch in a 1 1/2- to 2-quart saucepan and boil over moderate heat, covered, until lentils are just tender and most of water is absorbed, 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and let stand, covered, until ready to use.

Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water, then drain pasta in a colander and return pasta to pot.

Add onions, lentils, and spinach to pasta, then toss with just enough reserved cooking water to wilt spinach and moisten pasta. Add cheese and salt and pepper to taste, tossing to combine.